by Don Mann
As he sat in the back of an SUV that sped through the streets of Guadalajara, Crocker’s body begged to sleep, but his brain wouldn’t let him, pushing the name Maria to the surface over and over.
Once he focused enough to understand who Maria was and why she was important, he said out loud, “We’ve got to find her.”
But no one responded. Mancini, Akil, and Suárez sat behind him, snoring, and the driver kept staring ahead.
Jenson in the passenger seat finished his cell phone call, pulled the buds out of his ears, turned back to Crocker, and said, “I have good news and bad. The good news is that Nieves was given a blood transfusion and is responding to pain and verbal stimuli.”
“He and Davis have arrived in Mexico City?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the bad news?” Crocker asked.
“We’ve got nothing on the Clarks’ new location.”
“What about the Jackal?” Mancini asked.
“Nothing on him, either.”
“We need to find Maria,” suggested Crocker.
The sandy-haired CIA officer at the wheel looked over this shoulder and finally spoke. “Maria isn’t her real name.”
“What is it?”
“Claudia Matamoros.”
“Find her,” Jenson barked, looking at his watch. “We’ve got nine hours.”
Lisa dreamt that she was in the woods being chased by a pack of jackals like the ones she’d seen in the backyard. Her lungs burned and the muscles in her calves ached as she ran over the mossy, leaf-covered ground, trying to keep from slipping. Struggling, she veered right, into the cover of high green grass that bordered a body of water.
The jackals snarled and howled behind her. She couldn’t imagine why they were so angry, or what she had done to put herself in this horrible situation.
But it must have been something personal, because she sensed their hatred as they clawed the ground and closed the gap between her and them.
Six feet beyond the tall grass lay a river that fed into a silver-colored lake. She ran as fast as she could, jumped, and landed on the soggy edge of the far side with a splash. The jackals whined and howled on the other side. But when she tried to pull herself out of the muck, she discovered that her legs were stuck.
Seeing her distress, one of the jackals jumped into the water and started to swim toward her. She saw its hungry yellow eyes draw closer and struggled to pull free. The animal was practically on her. She saw its long teeth and smelled its hot, disgusting breath.
As it bit into her shoulder, she screamed, “No!” and awoke in a room filled with pale-blue light.
El Chacal leaned over her and shook her shoulder gently.
“Mrs. Clark,” he whispered with a sensual Mexican accent. “Mrs. Clark, wake up.”
The bed had four wooden posts. The windows were covered with long blue curtains. A young man in a white shirt and dark pants stood near the door.
“Mrs. Clark…” the Jackal whispered. “Can you hear me, Mrs. Clark?”
The whites of El Chacal’s eyes were yellow. His lips bloodless and cracked.
“Mrs. Clark,” he said. “I have good news for you. Your stay with us is almost over.”
“Really?” she asked, a big wad of emotion gathering in her chest.
“Yes. But before you go, I want you to record a statement. You think you can do that for me?”
Tears of relief gathered in her eyes. “A statement?”
“Yes, a statement. That’s all I ask. I’ll send someone to help you. But first, you need to take a shower and get dressed.”
“Of course,” she said, sitting up and discovering that her white cotton nightgown was drenched in sweat. “Thank you.”
Crocker was pulling on the fresh light-green tunic and pants he had grabbed at the hospital, when Jenson, in the passenger seat, turned to him and said, “Claudia’s father, mother, brother, and aunt have already left for Dallas. But Claudia is still trying to recover her five-year-old son, who has been living with his father at an amusement park on the other side of town. My people think she’s there now.”
“Hit the gas!” Crocker exclaimed.
It took them forty minutes to find the amusement park, which sat behind a Ford dealership off the south highway. It was a sad, grimy place with a tall, rusted Ferris wheel, a pit for bumper cars, a roller coaster that was out of order, and an assortment of game booths and lesser rides.
The sandy-haired CIA officer rolled the black Range Rover with blacked-out windows into the dust-filled lot and parked.
Despite its condition, the place was filled with lower-class Mexican mothers and children, many of whom were carrying balloons. Directly ahead of them was a bumper car ride with a long line of excited children.
Jenson addressed Crocker and his men in back. “The father’s name is Moco Taveras. You think you guys can handle this?”
“Is Elvis dead?”
“You going dressed like that?” he asked Crocker.
“Why not?”
The four SEALs strode to the ticket window, where Suárez paid the forty-peso admission for all four men, then asked the big woman behind the counter where they could find Moco Taveras.
She shrugged as though she’d never heard of him.
After he handed the ticket woman another three hundred pesos (approximately twenty-four dollars), she said, “Moco’s running the Ferris wheel today.”
Crocker, Mancini, and Akil sipped cold sodas as they watched Suárez approach the attraction and a mustached man with a blue bandana tied around his forehead.
Suárez told Moco he worked for the FBI and had money for Claudia. Moco suggested that Suárez leave the money with him and he’d make sure to give it to his wife. When that didn’t work, he pointed in the direction of the bumper car pavilion.
As Suárez walked away, Crocker saw Moco reach for his cell phone. A minute later, he saw Claudia (Maria) emerge from the pavilion in a blue top and tan pants, clutching a dark-haired little boy by the hand.
The moment she recognized him, she pushed the boy toward the Ferris wheel, turned, and ran in the opposite direction.
Suárez stopped the boy, and Akil and Crocker pursued her.
It was a short chase. Crocker snatched her off her feet and carried her to the Range Rover. She kicked and screamed, but neither Moco nor anyone else intervened.
Crocker set her on the middle seat and sat next to her as she clutched her son. All of them were dusty, sweating, and out of breath. Minus the wrestler’s mask, Claudia had a round, pleasant face.
Suárez asked her a question in Spanish, and Claudia wept and responded at the same time. She swore that she hadn’t alerted the narcoterrorists at the house and had no motive for betraying the Americans, who were moving her family to the States.
Crocker sensed that she was telling the truth.
“Does she know where the American women are now?” he asked.
Suárez translated. Claudia shook her head and said something.
“She doesn’t,” Suárez said. “She says El Chacal owns houses, apartments, and properties all over the country.”
“Does she have any way of getting in touch with people who do know?”
Claudia shook her head vigorously and said something in Spanish.
“No,” Suárez said.
“Does she have any idea who betrayed us?”
She thought about it, then nodded.
“Who?”
“Señor Marion,” she said.
“Bob Marion, the security consultant?”
“Jes.”
It seemed like a stab in the dark, but it was all they had and the clock was ticking.
Jenson said, “Let’s head back into the city. I’ll see if my people can locate Marion. He works for Global Banking and Investments downtown.”
Crocker struggled to stay awake as the sandy-haired CIA officer spun the vehicle onto an autopista and sped into town. All he saw were cars flashing by and patches of blue sky.
He dreamt he was standing on a rock casting a line into a river. Three minutes later, he opened his eyes and saw that they were passing a silver bus.
“This Marion guy was at the safe house when the raid was discussed?” Akil asked from the backseat.
“He was the dark-haired guy with the two-day growth and the smug look on his face,” Mancini answered.
Crocker tried to focus. He remembered that there had been something about Marion he hadn’t liked.
Five minutes later Jenson removed the buds from his ears and reported, “He’s attending a cocktail party in the Emiliano Zapata Room of the Hotel Demetria, which is near the university, downtown.”
“Marion?” Crocker asked.
“Yeah, Marion.”
“Where’s that exactly?” the driver asked.
“Twenty-two nineteen Avenida de la Paz. I’ll punch it in the GPS.”
Crocker slipped in and out of consciousness, but on some subconscious level his mind was busy trying to catch up with the events of the day. He absorbed information and processed new situations faster than most people. The image of the four heads on the coffee table kept reappearing.
He was jarred awake as the Range Rover hit a speed bump and lurched left.
“Sorry,” the driver muttered.
Outside he saw a beautiful, idyllic afternoon with sidewalks jammed full of determined-looking businesspeople and shoppers. Claudia sat leaning against the opposite door with her son in her lap.
The CIA officer pulled to the curb in front of a sleek hotel tower with a fountain out front. Atlas stood in the middle holding a metal globe on his back.
“Who’s going up?” Jenson asked.
“I’ll go with Suárez,” Crocker said, glancing at this watch. The deadline was eight hours away.
“Not dressed like that.”
They compared sizes and exchanged clothes. Crocker got Jenson’s black pants and pullover. Suárez wore the driver’s polo and chinos.
“That’s better,” Jenson concluded. “Grab him and take him down to the parking lot. We’ll meet you there.”
They entered the modern black-marble lobby wearing their same blood-covered black boots.
“High class,” Suárez whispered.
“Looks more like a modern art museum than a hotel.”
The clerk at the front desk turned his nose up at them like they smelled bad. “Twelfth floor,” he said. “But invitation only.”
They rode up alone, watching footage of masked Mexican soldiers roaming the grounds of the FBI compound on the elevator TV. It had the effect of a flashback from a bad dream.
Two burly guys in black suits stopped them at the double doors to the Emiliano Zapata Room.
“We’re from the U.S. embassy,” Suárez said in Spanish. “We have an important message to deliver to someone inside.”
One of the guards looked them over and asked, “What’s the VIPs name?”
“Señor Bob Marion.”
“Wait here.”
Crocker pushed past as one guard consulted a guest list on a table by the door and another turned to greet a short man in a gray suit.
“¡Que cosa!” the guard shouted.
Crocker quickly scanned the high-ceilinged room. There were no people in the center. Instead, large ceramic objects were displayed on tables. One of them looked like a huge gourd. People crowded under columned corridors on all four sides of the room. In the far left corner of the center space a jazz quartet played “A Night in Tunisia” by Dizzy Gillespie, which was one of Crocker’s favorite jazz tunes. To his right, he caught a glimpse of a woman with red lipstick throwing her head back and laughing. She stood next to a potted tree.
In the dim, atmospheric light he saw Bob Marion standing with his back to her, leaning one hand on the side of the planter. He wore a dark-gray suit and a blue shirt open at the collar. His other hand held a cocktail.
Crocker glanced over his shoulder to see if the guards were following him—they weren’t so far—then crossed the room.
Marion stood conversing with a tall, thin woman in a tight dress.
Crocker approached and said, “Excuse me, Bob. We met at Lane’s house a couple nights ago.”
Marion looked perplexed. “Oh, yeah.”
“Yeah.”
Marion seemed to sense that something was wrong. But before he could slip away, Crocker grabbed him by the forearm. He had the SIG Sauer hidden under the back of his black pullover.
“Bob, I need to talk to you in private,” Crocker said.
Marion maintained his cool. “Now?” he asked, trying to shake free. “This is a little awkward. This lady and I are discussing something important.”
Crocker wouldn’t let go. “It can’t wait.”
“Really, we have to do this now?”
Crocker tightened his grip on Marion’s arm.
“Give me a minute and I’ll meet you in the lobby,” Marion offered.
Crocker escorted him to a door in the corner, pushed it open, and punched the call button for the service elevator.
Marion started to struggle. “I don’t know what you think you’re—”
When the elevator door opened, Crocker shoved him inside, so that he stumbled backward and hit his head on the back wall of the car.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Marion groaned, holding himself up by the brass rail.
Crocker pushed the button for the basement, then pulled Marion up by the front of his suit. “I’m a little fucking upset. First, me and my men were ambushed when we got to the house in Puerto del Hiero. And when we returned to the FBI safe house, we found Lane, Steele, and two others dead with their heads cut off.”
“What?”
Crocker clocked him hard in the solar plexus.
Marion doubled over and groaned, “Maria.”
“You mean Claudia. She’s with us now, and she says it was you.”
“No.”
The elevator door opened into the badly lit basement. Crocker tried to quickly get his bearings, when Marion pushed him and bolted. But Crocker managed to stick his right foot out and trip him from behind, causing Marion to fall face-first to the concrete floor. Crocker picked him up by the back of his suit and saw blood dripping from his nose onto the front of his blue shirt.
“You’ll pay for this,” Marion growled.
“No, you will,” Crocker said, holding the SIG Sauer 226 to Marion’s head. With his left, he removed the walkie-talkie from his back pocket and spoke into it. “I’m in the basement, by the service dock, and I’ve got Marion with me.”
Seconds later the black Range Rover screeched to a stop in front of them and the back door opened. Crocker shoved Marion inside.
“What have we got here?” Max Jenson asked, leaning over the passenger seat.
Crocker: “Wait. Where’s Suárez?”
Mancini: “He’s meeting us out front.”
“Okay,” Crocker instructed. “Then find a deserted place to park.”
The CIA driver found an empty parking lot behind an office building under construction two blocks away. The workers had either quit early or had taken the day off.
The SUV sat in the shade with Mancini, Akil, and Suárez crowded in back and Crocker, Marion, Claudia, and her son on the middle bench. Marion held a handkerchief to his bleeding nose.
Jenson grabbed him by the front of his jacket and pulled him up against the back of the passenger seat. “Where’s the fucking Jackal?” he shouted. “Where’s he holding the Clark women?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit!” Jenson reached out and grabbed Marion by his wounded nose as Claudia covered her son’s eyes. “You can make this easy or real, real hard on yourself. Your choice.”
“Okay. Okay. Let go!”
Jenson loosened his grip.
“I don’t have contact with the Jackal or his men,” Marion explained. “Never have. But I think I see what happened.”
“What?”
“Ivan Jouma is
a client.”
“You mean of Global Banking and Investments?” Jenson asked.
“Yes. We help him locate investment opportunities.”
“The fuck you do!” Jenson screamed, his neck and face turning red with anger. “You help him launder drug money, through Guatemalan cutouts into U.S. banks.”
“I know nothing about that.”
Jenson slammed Marion in the chest so that he rebounded hard against the back of the seat. “Don’t give me bullshit, or your financial doublespeak! You work for the enemy and were pretending to help the FBI. When you heard that these brave men were going to raid the house where Lisa and Olivia Clark were being held, you called the Jackal and warned him. Didn’t you?”
“No!”
“You lie to me, and I’ll break every bone in your body, then throw you in a secret Polish prison for the rest of your life where you’ll rot to death. I’ll grab your wife and I’ll sell her to the Russian mob.”
“I don’t have a wife.”
Jenson reared back his fist as though he was about to clock him.
Marion held up his hands and pleaded, “All right. All right. Maybe I made a mistake. But I didn’t call Jouma or any of his people. Legally, I’m not allowed to have any direct contact with them.”
“Then what did you do?” Jenson screamed.
“I told an associate.”
“You mentioned the impending raid to someone else who works at GBI?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Do I need to tell you that?”
“Hell, yes.”
“All right…Tony Alvarez.”
“You sure about that?” Jenson asked.
“Yes.”
“You’ll wager your life on it?”
“I will.”
Crocker asked, “You got your cell phone with you?”
Marion nodded. “I do.”
“Call him. Find out where he is.”
“Tell him you have some more information but think your cell phone is tapped and need to see him in person,” Jenson added.